Second Bill of Rights

The Second Bill of Rights or Bill of Economic Rights was proposed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944.^[1] In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognise and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt argued that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness". His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these specific rights:

• Employment (right to work^{[notes 1]})
• An adequate income for food, shelter, and recreation
• Farmers' rights to a fair income
• Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
• Decent housing
• Adequate medical care
• Social security
• Education

These rights have come to be known as economic rights; although not to be enshrined within the constitution, the hope of advocating the policy was that it would be 'encoded and guaranteed by federal law'.^[2] Roosevelt stated that having such rights would guarantee American security and that the United States' place in the world depended upon how far the rights had been carried into practice. This safety has been described as a state of physical welfare, as well as "economic security, social security, and moral security" by American legal scholar Cass Sunstein.^[3] Roosevelt pursued a legislative agenda to enact his second bill of rights by lending Executive Branch personnel to key Senate committees. This tactic, effectively a blending of powers, produced mixed results and generated a backlash from Congress which resulted in passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This Act provided funding for Congress to establish its own staffing for committees.^[4]

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